Lost in the Carr Fire: Secret compartment and old-growth redwood

The Verhoog family home, which was destroyed in the Carr Fire, once housed a secret room that contained Pattry Hearst trial papers.
Damon Arthur, Record Searchlight

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Kelley Verhoog shows where the "secret room" that housed papers from the Patty Hearst trial was located in her home. The house was destroyed in the Carr Fire, but the papers had long since been removed from the home.(Photo: Damon Arthur/Record Searchlight file photo)Buy Photo

Even as a pile of ashes, charred lumber and debris, Kelley Verhoog hasn't lost enthusiasm for the home she lost in the Carr Fire.

After all, how many homes could boast having a secret vault hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that swung out after releasing a concealed latch?

"That was fondly known as the secret room," Verhoog said. "It was completely fireproof, and the only way in was through a door that actually looked like a bookshelf. You had to know the trick to get it open."

The vault at one time held documents from the historic Patty Hearst trial in the 1970s.

The man who built the house, former Redding Mayor Scott Carter, was the nephew of federal Judge Oliver Carter who presided over Hearst trial.

But a secret door was just one of the features that made the house special, Verhoog said.

The house was built with large old-growth redwood timbers that were once part of a lumber mill that was built in the 1880s in Arcata, she said.

More than 100 redwoods were also planted in the spacious yard that fronts the Sacramento River at the end of Harlan Drive in Redding.

Scott Carter's son, named after his great uncle Oliver Carter, said he has fond memories of the house from living there in his youth.

"It was pretty sad, obviously" that the house was destroyed in the Carr Fire, Oliver Carter said. "There are certain places that you remember, that you hold dear to your heart, and that was one of those places."

The Carters, however, took the papers with them when Verhoog and her family bought the house 23 years ago.

After the Verhoogs moved in they eventually removed the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and the steel door leading into the vault. They also knocked out part of one wall of the fireproof room.

Verhoog said the chamber apparently lived up to fire resistant intent, pointing to the cinder block walls that remained standing after the blaze destroyed the home.

Even the numerous redwood trees on the property survived the fire. Many of the trees were charred and the boughs were browned, but Verhoog said an arborist checked the trees and said they will recover.

Oliver Carter said that as a child he may not have appreciated how unique the secret room was.

"It was a real novelty, and I guess I never really realized what a novelty it was," Oliver Carter said.

He said his dad kept other important items in the room, in addition to the Hearst trial papers. Scott Carter began building the house on Harlan Drive the year Patty Hearst was arrested for taking part in a bank robbery along with the group that kidnapped her.

Hearst was from a wealthy and powerful family, and her grandfather was the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Even the FBI called Hearst's kidnapping and eventual conviction on charges of bank robbery and other crimes one of the strangest and most sensational cases in the agency's history.

Verhoog said the old growth redwood beams in the house were nearly as unique as the Hearst papers once kept in the home.

"The Carr Fire destroyed the only home we know of built with 15-foot-tall, 15-inch-square redwood beams with prominent whipsaw marks proving the original cutting," Verhoog said.

She and her family haven't yet decided if they will rebuild. Even if they could rebuild, the beauty of the original beams cannot be replaced, she said.